Then I love to sit in December
Where the big hearth sings,
And dreaming forget and remember
A host of things.
And the wind—I hear how it strangles
And gasps and sighs
On the roof's sharp, shivering angles
That front the skies.
How it groans and romps and tumbles
In attics o'erhead,
In the great-throated chimney rumbles,
Then all at once falls dead;
Till it comes like footsteps slipping
Of a child on the stair,
Or a quaint old gentleman tripping
With heavily powdered hair.
And my soul grows anxious hearted
For those once dear—
The long-lost loves departed
In the wind draw near.
And I seem to see their faces,
Not one estranged,
In their old accustomed places
'Round the wide hearth ranged.
And the wind that waits and poises
Where the shadows sway
Makes their visionary voices
Seem calling me far away.
And I wake in tears to listen
Again to the sobbing wind,
Far out on the lands that glisten,
Like the voice of one who sinned.